Is there a subject or topic your children are interested in and you would like to include in your homeschool plans? Indeed, an easy way to do that is with a unit study. While there are many different ways to do a homeschool unit study, a great thing about them is the flexibility to go as in-depth as you want. Therefore, you can make them last a day or a month, depending on your child’s interest level.
In fact, May 4th is considered National Weather Observers Day, and we all know that Spring tends to bring some crazy weather along with it. Because of this, we wanted to offer you a free homeschool unit study on the weather! So, do you want to learn more about what causes different types of weather or the kinds of storms they produce? Do you know who created the first radar system to track weather and when it was first used? Good, let’s dive in together!
Download your free weather homeschool unit study ebook at the bottom of this article.
Weather Homeschool Unit Study Book List
Books, we love books. Indeed, one of the best ways to start any unit study is with a good book. Therefore, we have compiled a list for you to get your weather unit started with a good read or two.
Nonfiction:
- National Geographic Kids – Everything Weather
- National Geographic Kids – Explore My World: Weather
- Climate and Weather Books for Kids by Baby Professor
- National Geographic Kids – Explore My World: Clouds
- National Geographic Kids – Extreme Weather by Thomas Kostigen
- All About Weather: A First Weather Book for Kids by Huda Harajli, MA
- National Geographic Kids – Little Kids First Big Book of Weather
- Chasing Storms and Other Weather Disturbances by Baby Professor
- All About Weather: A First Weather Book for Kids by Huda Harajli, MA
- Tornadoes and Hurricanes! by Cy Armour
- All About Hurricanes: Discovering Earth’s Wildest Storms by Cody Crane
- Whiteout!: A Book About Blizzards by Michael Dahl
Fiction:
- Misty the Cloud: A Very Stormy Day by Dylan Dreyer
- Blizzard! The Storm that Changed America by Jim Murphy
- Otis and the Tornado by Loren Long
- Snow Day by Margo Gates
- A Windy Day in Spring by Charles Ghigna
- Maya Prays For Rain by Susan Tarcov
- Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
- Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
- Capturing Thunder by Chryseis Knight
- Chasing Helicity by Ginger Zee
- Worm Weather by Jean Taft
Activity Books:
- STEM Starters for Kids Meteorology Activity Book
- Weather Experiments Book for Kids: More Than 25 Hands-On Activities to Learn about Rain, Wind, Hurricanes, and More
- The Kids’ Book of Weather Forecasting
- The Everything KIDS’ Weather Book: From Tornadoes to Snowstorms, Puzzles, Games, and Facts That Make Weather for Kids Fun!
- Weather Coloring book for Kids
Weather Homeschool Unit Study Activities
- Make a Rainstorm! – To show your children how clouds make rain, you only need a few essentials: a mason jar, shaving cream, food coloring, and eye droppers. First, add water to the jar and top with shaving cream. Then, using the eye droppers, add the food coloring a little at a time to the top of the shaving cream. Finally, as the shaving cream becomes saturated, the food coloring will begin to “rain” into the water. In effect, this is a great way to show your children how clouds become full of water, eventually creating rain!
- Measure the Wind! – This is a fun learning activity that can be done in several different ways. All you need is a cotton ball, a drinking straw, and a measuring tape. First, before doing this experiment, your children can make their predictions of what they think the outcome will be. Will the cotton ball travel further with one big gust of air coming from a straw or just blowing air from the mouth? Will stretching out the cotton ball to make it look more like a cloud affect the way it moves? How far does the cotton ball travel if it’s blown by a fan? What makes the difference? Repeat the experiment and compare the outcomes for the most accurate results.
- Weather Around the World! – Work in some geography and math by taking a day to map the weather around the world. First, choose some different cities in different areas, look up the temperature and weather, record it on a sticky note, and stick it on a world map. Then, once you’ve finished recording, compare different cities to one another. Which cities are recorded in Fahrenheit? Celsius? What’s the temperature difference? What causes the differences? There’s much one can include in this activity! (Bonus! Check out our ebook below for a printable to use with this activity!)
- Create a Hurricane! – To show your children how a hurricane moves, all you need is a large round bowl of water, a spoon, and some food coloring. First, stir the spoon in the water in a strong, circular motion until the water is spinning quickly. Then, once it’s spinning, drop some food coloring in the center of the spiral and watch as the color spreads into the spinning water like cloud bands in a hurricane. Hurricane Preparedness Week. Visit NOAA’s website to learn more about being prepared for hurricane season!
- Make a Tornado in a Jar! – Indeed, no weather activity list would be complete without making a tornado! In fact, there are many different ways to do this, but we’re going to do it with a large, glass bottle, some dish soap, and glitter. Start by filling the bottle most of the way with water. Then add a few drops of dish soap, sprinkle in some glitter, and close the bottle tightly. Finally, swirl the jar around in a circular motion, sit the bottle down, and watch your tornado spin!
Weather Snacks
Indeed, snacks make learning even better! That is why we have included some fun weather snacks to add to your weather unit study.
- Make a Cloud Float! – For this fun dessert, you need some Sprite or other lemon-lime soda, blue food coloring, and vanilla ice cream. First, add 4-5 drops of the food coloring to the soda to get a deep blue sky color, then add the blue soda to a cup with scoops of vanilla ice cream. Indeed, your kids will love this fun weather version of an ice cream float!
- Make a Rainbow Pizza! – This recipe calls for a package of refrigerated sugar cookie dough. Of course you can also make your own! First, press down the dough into a pizza pan and baked for 5 minutes at 350 degrees. For the filling, mix one 8 oz. package of softened cream cheese, 1/4 cup of powdered sugar, and an 8 oz. carton of whipped topping. Then, once the crust has cooled, spread the filling over the crust. Finally, top with chopped pineapple, kiwi, strawberries, bananas, mandarin oranges, or any other colorful fruit you desire!
- Make Snowy Day French Toast! – Give breakfast a fun twist. First, use snowflake cookie cutters on your bread slices before turning them into french toast. Then, after cooking, sprinkle with a little powdered sugar to finish off the snowy look. Indeed, your kids are sure to love and remember this special breakfast!
- Make a Spaghetti Twister! – Read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs with your children and enlist their help with dinner! While ChewandSwallow may have dealt with a tomato tornado, you can make your own meal of spaghetti and twist the noodles into a tornado shape as you eat. Or, use rotini noodles and point out their twisty tornado shape!
- Make a Sunny or Rainy Day Snack! – Grab some round crackers and cheese for this sun-related snack. First, cover the cracker with some cheese (either something like Laughing Cow or Babybel) and add some small cheese triangles to the edges to make sun’s rays. For the rainy snack, make a cloud out of a sliced banana and use blueberries for the falling raindrops!
Weather Learning Videos
Expand your unit with some media. We love using videos to help our homeschoolers understand and get excited about new content. Try some of these ideas.
